Sounds Like Something Breaking
by Merida's Hair
Summary: "Regina has a mother who loves her now, and she doesn't know how to handle the ramifications." An AU after "The Miller's Daughter" where Cora gets her heart back and lives. Glimpses into the year afterward.


**A/N:** First of all, a special thanks to ennn for beta-ing this! And being an excellent beta at that. This fic is sort of like my miracle baby. I wrote in a huge burst of inspiration last night between 1 and 5 in the morning, because I seriously couldn't stop until I finished it. I'm mostly satisfied with how it came out, (it's also the longest and most detailed fic I've ever written), however I want to tinker with it more before I put in on AO3 and .

The title is from a line Rumpel says to Cora: _"__Not a very pretty name, is it? Sounds like something breaking."_

I hope you all enjoy if you choose to read! (And please do leave a review, if you are compelled to).

* * *

_Month One_

It's become a habit to hear the padding of feet at five in the morning, just before the sun crests over the horizon. The last parts of night fading into pale blue.

Cora hasn't slept well since every emotion she's ever had started hitting her at all angles, threatening to cripple with their strength. Regina, having to fight sleeplessness her entire miserable life, finds herself following in her footsteps in the days following Cora moving in. It seems fitting, as Regina _had_ followed her footsteps in life, even when it was the last thing she'd ever meant to do.

Her mother looks odd in clothing from this world. It never quite fit her. She was meant for long gowns of silk and jewels around her neck, and she knew it from the moment a young spoiled princess tripped her just because she could. She's staring curiously into her cup of coffee, eyes drifted off into the murky depths of her past. Her lips are set in a line.

"Good morning, Mother." Regina says with a smile that's tired and genuine. Everyone has the unasked question of _how could you love her?_ And even after all this time, Regina doesn't have an answer. She has a bad habit of loving people who hurt her in the worst ways, and then losing them because of misdeeds and misinterpretations and an acute desire for vengeance that hasn't quite gone away.

She goes to make her own cup of coffee, wondering whether she'll have sugar or cream or if she'll just take it black.

"Good morning, Sweetheart." Cora says, glancing over at her with a hesitant quirk of her lips. She's careful with Regina these days, too careful, as if a scathing look could break her all over again.

Regina wants to laugh sometimes, bitterly at her mother. She's already broken, a puzzle with so many pieces missing, fragmented parts of a whole person. Put them back together again, and there would be so much not there.

They usually sit in silence and watch the sunrise. It's sweet, almost saccharine in the way that they try to make up for all the years of a lost heart and power taken and stolen and of a little girl lifted into the air, bound by magic and crying.

She's always needed control of a situation, but even she admits she has none over this one. Regina has a mother who loves her now, and she doesn't know how to handle the ramifications.

Sometimes she looks at Cora and sees her; herself, that little girl who drew a picture for her mama and watched as Cora half-smiled and rolled her eyes and dropped it meaninglessly onto the table and told Regina to stop pestering her and told her she was worthless when she fell during dance lessons.

Then she remembers her mother's smile after she gave back her heart. A cursed smile, so genuine and long-time forgotten.

A heart is as heavy as a crown, they both know that now.

"Would you have done it?" She suddenly blurts, turning to her mother.

"What?"

"Killed Daniel-" She swallows the word bitterly. Such a sour taste for such a beautiful name. "If you had your heart."

Cora's eyes widen and she looks away. Her hands fiddle with the handle on the mug, and she is stricken with obvious unknowing. Regina knows the answer she wants -no- the answer she _needs_, but also isn't going to get. Cora was a woman filled with bitter rage and a need for power, and she spent _so_ many years choosing it over her daughter she honestly doesn't, _can't_ know if her heart would have chosen those different paths.

Regina wonders why she even asked.

What comes out of Cora's mouth next is surprising, and yet not. "I'm _sorry_, Regina, _I'm so_-" She stops herself, mouth closing, lips pressed in a hard line.

"I hate this. Guilt has always been beneath me. I've had no use for it." She then looks stricken again. "You have to understand why, Regina, why I did it. Love _is_ weakness, it still is, I feel so weak right _now_. I didn't want you to experience what I did, having to rip out your own heart to get rid of it, but I just-"

She pauses, catching Regina's eyes and the emotion there nearly makes her recoil.

"I never understood you at all, did I?" She laughs bitterly. "You weren't like me. You didn't care for power."

"No." Regina says simply, because back then, it was. She wanted a husband, perhaps children, and a green pasture to ride her horses in. She didn't care if her clothes were made of rags. Now she knows how naive she was to expect happiness without any regret, but she knows so many lives would have been better if she'd just been able to run away with her stable boy.

"I am… sorry, my darling. I'm sorry for all the pain I've caused you." She grabs Regina's hand suddenly, and Regina wishes she wouldn't flinch.

"That wasn't my intention. I wanted what was _best_ for you, I-"

"You wanted power, Mama, you wanted _power._" Tears have gathered in Regina's eyes even with all effort to prevent them, and her voice is choked with emotion. She wants to scream, to shout at the world for never considering her for a happy ending before now when it seems so impossible, to shout at herself for being so damn selfish, even as she still is. A happy ending, that's all she ever wanted. _No_, a happy beginning, a happy middle, and _then_ a happy ending. She's settling for the last. She wants to be loved, without strings attached to pull her away and make her pay dearly for it.

Cora releases her hand and reaches for her coffee again.

"I did." She almost whispers, so much regret laced with the words that Regina lets out a small sob.

Cora's reaction is instinctual as she starts to brush her hand through Regina's hair. She starts to think of what her life would be like as the daughter of a miller's daughter, without a penny to her name. How hard it would have been, but maybe so full of love. It hurts too much, even more than the thoughts of the son who chose a new family over her.

She stands up, feeling the prickling in her legs from almost falling asleep.

"I need to go get ready for the day. Goodbye, Mother." Get ready for nothing really, but there is a small hope every day that she might see her son that keeps her going. She looks back at her mother, so very lost, and knows that this morning is a start to a happy ending, but nothing is even close to being resolved or solved, if the ache in her heart is anything to be measured.

It's the last time they talk this honestly for a very long time.

* * *

_Month Two_

She's invited by Henry for ice cream at Granny's and isn't stood up this time. She's pleasantly surprised, even more so when he smiles at her genuinely. He doesn't move to hug her, but it's a step.

He asks the question. The hairs on her neck stand up, and she wonders how it might look for the town to see their former mayor and queen running away from the bedraggled diner. However, running is not really her style, at least not physically, so she stays and waits to answer.

"Why are you living with Cora?" It's asked so very innocently, and with only a touch of darkness, and lot of inquisitiveness. Exactly what she'd expect from her son.

She smiles as sweetly as she can. "Someone needs to keep an eye on her, Henry."

He's dissatisfied with her answer, and she is too.

She wonders if her habit of lying to him will ever stop.

* * *

_Month Three_

A garden is Snow's suggestion. As relayed by Emma, because Regina doesn't tend to spend time with her once nemesis. The Sheriff, however, is another story. One of the stirrings of something, not hate, not anymore if it even ever was. They meet on a bench by the harbor once a week, sometimes two, with coffee and news of each other's happenings. (That doesn't mean they don't argue, however. Argument is one of the foundations of whatever their relationship is).

"A garden? Why in the world would I make a _garden_ with my mother? Snow_ does_ realize we used to take out hearts during our mother-daughter bonding time, correct?" Regina asks with all the bite she can manage.

"Well with those days behind you-" Emma gives her a look. "_Hopefully_. Maybe doing something monotonous would help? I mean, besides occasionally sitting with her and doing nothing and occasionally having conversations that end in tears on both sides."

It's times like these Regina both regrets and is grateful that she's opened up to Emma Swan. She's not quite clear on why she has simply beyond the fact that she really does need a friend, and Kathryn Nolan is a bit peeved at her for the 'cursed for twenty-eight years' issue. Emma, for some reason that's beyond her, tolerates her, (more than that if Regina is being honest with herself, but there are parts of her heart she cannot bear to not have locked away).

She scoffs nonetheless. "We're really not the gardening types, Ms. Swan."

"_Emma_." She says with exasperation. "_Jesus_, Regina, I think we can at least call each other by names."

Regina rolls her eyes. "What if I actually dislike your name?"

"Do I need to pull the whole 'who is the reason I grew up an orphan card?" Emma bites back. Regina sobers, although not visibly. She is content with giving Emma a muted glare. She isn't quite clarified on _why_ that particular part of their history needed to be brought up, but apparently it's a lot deeper than being on first name basis. She can tell by the downcast look Emma's face, the way she fidgets with her gloves. There are words she needs to say to Regina, barriers that need to be broken down, but has decided that this isn't the time nor place.

"Snow's trying to help, Regina. I mean, _really_. She doesn't want to fight you anymore. She hates Cora, I mean a lot, she gets really terrifying actually when she talks about her, but she cares about you."

Regina gives her a pointed look.

Emma closes her mouth. "She does. She doesn't say it, but remember? Lie detector? I mean, I guess she's more interested in you two not going on a killing spree, but she recognizes how both you and her paid for the sins of others, or something like that." Emma shrugs. "She said it, not me."

She looks at Regina, something like heartfelt concern in her eyes, swirling, even as tension causes her to sit rigidly on the bench. They're friends, more than that, Regina reasons, but they're still arch-enemies according to a storybook, and there's so much blood between their lines it could fill a battlefield. It's still hard reconciling those facts. "_Try it_, please? Everything sucks when you're not happy. I'm sick of things sucking. You cursed an entire land because you weren't happy." She sighs. "You _deserve _to be happy. I mean that."

Regina cocks a brow. "And what of my mother?"

Emma looks uncomfortable and doesn't answer for a very long time. Regina sees her struggle as she tries to reconcile her mother's hate and her own feelings for both the woman in question, and Regina herself.

"Snow could have killed her." She says finally. "She might have, if you hadn't come in before she lit the candle."

Regina remembers the moment well. She remembers the strong desire to snap Snow's neck as she saw the red candle poised over her mother's heart. She remembers the shock registering on Snow's face as realized what she was about to do. She remembers how Snow broke down in front of her, asking Regina questions neither could answer. _Why did she take away my mother? Why did you take away my baby girl? Why couldn't we just have happiness! _Her voice is constantly ringing in Regina's ear, and she's nauseated at the memory.

And then she remembers the next moment clearest of all. Snow standing up trying to regain her dignity, sniffling and cheeks red as apples. Her placing the red candle back in her pocket before lifting up the box containing Cora's heart.

_"I'm sick of the death."_

Regina sinks lower in the bench as the memory overcomes her.

_"I'm sick of you taking away my happiness. I'm sick of taking away your happiness." _Her eyes were clear, full of fury and strength and impossible hopes.

_"If I give you this, she could love you. That's what you've always wanted, isn't it? You don't deserve it. Or maybe you do." _She had paused, struggling with the words. Regina remembers the strong beat of her heart as she too contemplates the impossible hopes she'd dared not before.

_"If I give this to you, can you promise me to put it back in? And then… allow me to take her life if she doesn't love you? If she tries to hurt my family again?"_ Oh _silly_ Snow White, Cora's always loved Regina. She showed it in the worst of ways, and power was put before her, but she did. And that's what made it all the worse. But there's always a part of her, beneath her corsets and her own heart collections, beneath all that was the _Queen_ and all that was Regina herself, was the desire for mother's love. She hated herself in that moment for being so weak in front of Snow. This is a peace offering. Perhaps undeserved because of slain mothers and fathers, but if Regina is being honest, she's very sick of the death too. And the emptiness it leaves her, where she expected satisfaction. If Regina had walked in even seconds later, a whole new story would have spun out and she would have been lost to vengeance forever. Here is a chance; an impossible hope. A mother. She could have a _mother_.

She accepts before her head completely has time to catch up with her heart.

The pounding in her heart, magnified by the beating one in her hands, did not vanish until the heart was firmly placed in Cora's chest, and that smile bloomed on Cora's face that changed absolutely everything, and still nothing.

They stay away from Snow's family, and most of Snow's family stays away from them. A new chance. Still grasping at straws. Still very, very broken.

She looks at Emma finally, Emma concerned and her brow furrowed. Regina almost reaches to smooth it out, wondering when Emma Swan became something precious to her, and fearing it so very deeply.

She sighs and wryly says, "I'll try the garden. Not for _her,_ however."

The _For you_ is unspoken, but Emma nudges her arm and gives a small smile to say _Thank you._

* * *

There is a lot of arguing, it would seem, in making a garden.

Or maybe it's just Regina and Cora.

She went to the kitchen to prepare lemonade to ward of exasperation, and came back to the tragedy that has become her backyard..

_"Mother_, what the hell have you done to the rose bush?" She near screeches, as her eyes take in the travesty that is her mother's portion of the garden. The soil is everywhere it shouldn't be; with more outside than in the carefully drawn lines Regina has created, and the roses are standing at awkward ends, more than half their petals fallen off. Cora is crouched next to the remains of the roses in a fresh patch of soil, arms covered in dirt, a shovel in one hand, and ruined flowers in another.

Her mother's arms cross then, and her gaze is steely and hardened with a touch of rage. Cora looks ridiculous in a pair of sweatpants and a tank top, her hair in a bandana, and Regina almost loses her rage as she takes in the image.

"_Well_, dear, I never learned how to garden. I didn't have time when I was delivering flour, and I had no use of it as a royal." She says the word royal like she always had; like everyone should treat her as such. She isn't as afraid to snark and making scathing remarks at Regina as she was in the beginning, but there is a certain carefulness to her own rage now. Her heart won't let her have her old rage. She then breaks the regality with something like a pout.

"This would go by so much quicker and with less pain if we just used _magic, _I-"

_"Mother!"_ She punctuates the word by slamming the pitcher of lemonade on the never-used picnic table.

"We're not using magic!" Not ever again, Regina wants to add. Not if she can help it, no matter how difficult it is. "Do you not understand why we're even doing this?"

Cora glances distastefully at her nails before flashing Regina a glare. _"No,_ since you exclaimed 'we're making a garden today' without any explanation _or reason_ and forced me into this get-up."

They have a stare-down, eyes flashing with intensity, also ages old, and Regina decides that communication needs to go on the top of the list of things to work on.

"So tell me. _Why?" _Her voice is dangerous, and dammit this is about _gardening._

Regina huffs. "It's so….I mean…..we…." She stumbles miserably on her words, with a sudden panic that Cora is going to berate her any moment, to start lifting her into the air. It's the crushing fear from her childhood that made her feel so small. The feeling stays even as Cora makes no move to lift her up, or to do anything really. Although a closer look showed that Cora was thinking about it, and Regina coils away from her on instinct. Small steps backward. Look for a place to hide away, run away. Back to Daddy. Back to her stable boy.

"It's so we could spend some time together without fighting or heavy conversation...just time to...spend together, without any of that." She hates how young she sounds. Only her mother has the ability to this part of her out, so repressed and yet still so very much there.

Cora's face turns to another kind of panic as she starts to rush forward towards Regina and stops herself.

"I'm-"

"Sorry, I know." She's very sick of those words.

"Just…fix the rose bush, Mother. Try not to mess it up further." She snaps out of it because she's not that little girl anymore, and she refuses to be her anymore. Refuses to be the victim. Refuses to let this day be ruined. A voice inside tells her that she can't help the situation, that a garden won't really do anything, but she ignores it.

They go to a tense silence as Regina considers the lilacs she'd previously been working. They're doing flowers today, vegetables tomorrow. Or maybe it would just be flowers. She starts to hum something, something remembered but unnamed. The sweat develops along her skin, and Emma is right about one thing, the monotony helps a new and terrifying situation, even if doesn't suddenly make them have a picture-perfect relationship. A peace settles over her, a strained one, but one still there. She hasn't looked over at her mother in many minutes.

"I sang that to you."

She nearly drops the watering can and the hose.

"What?"

"When you were very small. Before you could fully remember. It's an old hymn, something my own mother sang to me before she died." She glances over at Cora, her face stricken. Cora is lost in the memory, her eyes shining, her lips pursed.

"There were very few moments when I let myself love you…as much I could, of course." She glanced at Regina. "You have to believe me."

It doesn't make up for it, Mother. It doesn't, it never will. Too many years of fear, of pain, of losing herself in her mother's image, too many, _too many_. But as she opens her mouth to say yes, because however meaningless it is, she does believe her, chaos happens.

Chaos in the form of a hose suddenly going out of control, hitting Regina in the face and then writhing on the floor spouting water all over their efforts. Cora shrieks as she tries to get away from it, almost dancing as the water spouts at her feet, and this time it's just _too _ much, and Regina laughs and laughs, doubling over on the ground as her chest heaves with mirth.

Cora finally manages to grab the hose and she looks at her laughing daughter and smirks, not cruelly for once in her life, but with her own mirth and then she breaks out in a smile, still not cruel, not at all.

"Laughing at your mother, are we? _Well_…" She turns the hose on Regina, and Regina shrieks as she springs back. Cora pauses, the smile still in place, but hesitation in her eyes, _have I gone too far again, darling?_

Regina smiles back, taking the opportunity to grab the hose back and turning it on Cora in retaliation.

In this entire gardening experience, she never thought she'd end up having _fun_. She's mostly done it to placate Emma. There was a small hope that it could be beneficial, but if anything she assumed she truly would end up five and half feet off the ground, shrieking to be let go. Or at the very least slamming doors and the complete ruination of her backyard. She's never, _ever_ associated the word fun with Cora. Time with Cora was spent carefully as a child, restrained, and so many times in fear. But that was a consequence of a lost heart, she supposed. The possibilities of fun were endless, and for a moment she became like a child, without all the sorrow of her own childhood.

There's shrieking and yelling and water everywhere, and someone walking past would have thought the two most hated people in Storybrooke had finally gone mad, but they were actually having f_un_, and that was a madness in itself. Regina's favorite pair of shorts are soaked, her perfectly styled hair is flat and ruined. Cora's bandana has been pushed into the soil and is mixed into the mess of stems and petals.

The garden was a disaster, but they were laughing _together_, and this was how it always could have been. With exhaustion they both collapse, this thought heavy in Regina's heart as she calms down from the madness, and really, that was _utterly_ ridiculous and she doesn't know how it really escalated to that _level _of madness.

It could have been like this.

There's _still_ a chance, and it's evident in the chill of her soaked shirt, the ruined garden all around her. Her mother still in hysterics next to her.

As Cora finally calms down, she starts to develop a peculiar frown on her face.

"Snow White truly is an idiot."

"On that, Mother, we can agree."

Except for the first time since her mother's had a heart, Regina feels like this means something towards their happy ending.

* * *

When she tells Emma two weeks later, she ends up smacking her on the arm as Emma snorts into her coffee.

"Don't be so smug, Ms. Swan. It's unbecoming."

"It's _Emma._"

* * *

_Month Five_

"I'd like to meet Henry."

Regina looks up from her book. Cora had been channel surfing for the better part of the afternoon, endlessly fascinated by the "giant enchanted box." (She had stopped on Grey's Anatomy, and had mentioned how handsome Patrick Dempsey was too many times this afternoon).

She blinked at the question. It was incredibly random, considering how Cora barely mentions Henry in their conversations. It had remained a sore subject for both of them; how Regina still felt snubbed, and how Cora was convinced Henry adored Regina much more than Regina would ever feel about her. It had led to arguing and doors slamming and Regina crying again in her room, and gods is she _sick_ of crying. So Henry had remained that elephant in the room. Until now it seems.

"Any reason?" She tries not to let her voice waver.

Cora shrugs. "He's my grandson."

"Some wouldn't say so." She retorts mildly.

"_You_ would. He calls you 'Mom.' You're his mother, and therefore I'm his grandmother." She smiles wryly.

"I promise not to pull out his heart or anything like _that._"

Both of them shudder, and know that was the exact wrong thing to say and exactly the wrong time. It's a habit with them, she's come to realize.

"You don't have to be his grandmother." She says finally, and all too soft. She felt an acute fear then, of letting her mother see her son. There was a time she would have been willing to kill her own mother so she would never see or even hear of Henry. A part of that feeling lingers, and she desperately tries to push it away.

"I want to." But she doesn't appear firm in this, not concrete. She's trying, Regina realizes. Like Regina herself tried in those first few weeks, still is trying. To make connections other than stolen hearts and stolen dreams. To form a semblance of humanity again.

But Regina doesn't exactly care about her mother trying. Or she does, but in the face of her son's safety, she _can't._

"No." She says finally, but then falters. "Not yet. Things are too…."

"…heated right now, I know."

Another pause.

"Someday?" There's a heartbreaking hopefulness in her voice, and Regina can't help but feel the slightest bit guilty before she pushes _that _away. She's not the guilty one here, _remember, remember, remember._

"Perhaps" She says as vaguely as she can before she returns to her book.

* * *

_Month Six_

Regina's first kiss with Emma is after an argument._ Naturally._

They're standing by their bench and Emma's breath is hot and heavy, and is seems like a lot of _their_ journey was to get to this moment; by the harbor, bodies close, heated words.

Regina leans in first, but Emma is quick to reciprocate. Her hands twine in Regina's hair, and Regina grasps at the fabric covering her back, and all she thinks is _finally_, finally, even when kissing Emma Swan should make no sense at all.

* * *

_Month Seven_

Regina has been invited to Thanksgiving dinner at the Charmings, and Cora has not.

Cora rises up against this, saying words that make Regina sick to your stomach. _They don't even care about you, Regina! They think you're nothing, that you're the dirt scraped off of their boots! They think you're pure evil, horrible. Idiotic girl, ungrateful child! And you'd rather be with them, than someone who truly loves you! _

Anger rises up in her as she witnesses this, how easily Cora can succumb to her rage, to leaning on old arguments and old manipulations, but she wants to see her _son_ on Thanksgiving, so pushes back the fear as far as she can and lashes out with words like _Don't you dare be selfish_ and _You don't own me_ and they're old words and afterwards Cora tries to be angry again, but falters, because she really didn't want to yell like she used to, and she pads back up to her room and slams the door.

It's times like these that Regina wants to really give up on trying to have a relationship, but then a second later she remembers the happier times, the ones starting to build up, and how much she still loves her mother despite everything, and it's not _okay_, but at least they're not destroying towns anymore and the word love is said occasionally.

They're keeping each other from being The Evil Queen and The Queen of Hearts. Emma tells her that one day, and Regina is struck by the truth of it. Somehow they balance each other out.

But honestly, she doesn't have the energy to be the Queen anymore, and neither does Cora. So their arguments tend to end up like this. Half-done, with one party or more crying, and the other giving up and slamming the door.

Regina ends up going to the dinner, and resolves to spend time with her mother later, if she'll speak with her. She didn't want Cora to be alone on Thankgsiving, she really didn't. She arrives four minutes late because her pie needed some extra time, (it's not apple, well _obviously_, and pumpkin isn't her strong suit. It's more of the Blue Fairy's dish), and her greetings are strained and so are theirs. Snow tries extra hard, even almost hugs her before Regina's eyes warn her not to.

It's a feud to be solved another day.

Emma does hug her, almost tentatively, and Regina surprises herself by hugging back, her face half buried in her neck and Emma's arms squeeze her tightly around her waist and she wonders if Emma has had anything to drink because they've never really been the hugging types, before a cry of _Mom! _is heard and she has an eleven year old boy in her arms.

She tucks his head underneath her chin as she always does and realizes he's grown so much, and she's missed so much. His hair's grown too long too, almost covering his eyes. And has his voice deepened/ No, not yet. She hasn't missed that much. Guilt clenches her. Fear still, that she will lose him. Emma's hand is still on her back and it's with only a glance from Regina that she retracts it. He detaches himself and carefully asks about Cora.

"She's fine, completely enthralled by Patrick Dempsey at the moment." Emma laughs, a bit strained, and Henry's brow is furrowed.

They both know it's a lie, damned lie detector, but right now the truth hurts too much for Thanksgiving dinner. Even an awkward Thanksgiving dinner as it is.

"Come on, Mom! Grandpa just got here with Belle."

Oh _yes_, really, awkward doesn't even begin to cover it.

* * *

Neal Cassady tries to make small talk with her and the only result is Regina left with a sour taste in her mouth and a scowl on her face.

He is entirely uninteresting, but has a bit of a roguish appeal she supposes. She sees what Emma might have seen in him, and the unwanted jealousy rises up in her before she has any say in it.

Emma notices and smirks ever so slightly in her direction. Regina's nostrils flare as she realized the ammo she's given the Sheriff.

However it's better than talking to his father, whom she entirely loathes for her and her mother's sake and is grateful that Belle has his attention for the most part.

Archie Hopper tries to make conversation with her, even tries to apologize that she got framed for his nonexistent murder, and offers his help again. She says _"Bother someone else, Bug" _and hopes he takes the message that she's still furious with him, fake murder or not.

The unspoken question, another, is _Why aren't you furious at your mother for framing you_? There are so many of those. The unspoken questions. She is _furious_, but things aren't that simple anymore, if they ever were.

When Charming makes his toast, he literally is tongue-tied with what to say to a group of people who mostly despise each other but convene for the sake of one child. He has to sit down. Regina chuckles darkly underneath her napkin and gets kicked by someone underneath the table.

She scowls, and hopes they realize how lucky they are that her heart-taking days are over.

They eat turkey, talk about the weather, and Mary Margaret's new class, and pretend all is normal.

* * *

Regina takes the extra pie back to the mansion, (no one wanted the apple), and shares a few slices with her mother, who seemed to have waited for her in the kitchen. Apologies are given by a simple look, rather than words. Neither want to talk about it, lest they fight again. She regales her with the story of Charming's hilarious lack of a speech. Her mother guffaws, and nearly chokes on apple pieces.

She keeps the conversation purposely light, partly because she's grateful that Cora's mood has vastly improved, and because Archie's unasked question is still swirling within her mind.

As Regina keeps telling bits and pieces of the night, she keeps coming back to Emma accidentally; her stories from her police work, her jokes with Henry, how she kept bragging about her Mario Kart score, (a game Regina knows far too much about from mothering Henry alone for ten years), really juvenile things, before Cora gives a knowing look that shuts Regina up about the subject of Emma Swan.

Not again, her fears say, _never again._

The subject is silently let go of.

Then Cora hesitantly asks about Rumpelstiltskin, and there is a very strange look her face; soft, yet hard. Full of wonder, of hope, but of bitterness and a hint of loathing and time lost. Regina wants to scream _no_ as loud as she can, beats her fists against the truth.

_Love,_ she recognizes. She knows love when she sees it. It used to sicken her, and now it just makes her queasy in an all together different way as she recognizes it on her mother's face.

Her mother_ is in love_ with Rumpelstitlskin.

She wonders how she never knew before.

Rumpel is another elephant in the room; he's hurt both of them considerably. Regina, corrupted, manipulated, hated. Cora…..Cora loved and left, but who did the leaving? And also corrupted, also hated. He was in the way of their happiness, it was a fact made clear.

He wasn't always, it would seem.

Her mother sees the inquisitive look on her face and doesn't lie for once. Not _completely._

"I made the wrong choice a long time ago." She says with resolution, and eats more pie. The crickets chirp in the night, and Regina puts on some light classical music to drown them out.

_Cora made a lot of wrong choices. _

She doesn't ask for an elaboration, and that thought stays stubbornly in her head.

* * *

_Month Eight_

Emma and Regina are sitting on the swings some ways away from the rest of the playground, watching Henry talk with Ava and Paige. It's like something out of a teenage romance novel, Emma is twisting the metal ropes around each other, and swinging around with her legs sticking out, and Regina sits primly on hers, occasionally rocking back and forth.

They're not speaking, but they look occasionally at each other and blush, and it's honestly very annoying.

Really.

"I'd like to take you out on a date." Emma blurts and stops spinning, and Regina blinks.

"Excuse me?"

"A date, like a real one. At a nice restaurant with barely enough light to see the menus, and flowers, and nice clothes and-"

"I know what a date entails, Emma."

Emma visibly deflates.. The swing pathetically swings slightly back and forth, and her arms are dangling down. She gulps and glances over at Henry, animatedly explaining something of the greatest importance to his two best friends.

"Okay…that's…fine. I'd just thought I'd ask-" Her eyes widen, and a smirk grows slowly on Regina's face.

"Wait….you called me Emma!"

Regina laughs, and it's not fake, and there's a warmth building in her stomach. She smiles at the Sheriff, with that same warmth, her eyes twinkling and a teasing smirk still plastered on her face.

"Indeed I did."

"…So does that mean….?"

"Yes, Ms. Swan."

Emma smiles, widely and beautifully, but her eyes are wild and frightened, like Emma knows this a crossroad that could lead to either ending, one filled with heartache, the other happiness. The most implausible of endings should be the Savior and the Evil Queen being together instead of slaughtering each other, but that's the one set in motion. She stops smiling seconds after she stops, and she places her palms on her thighs and stares at Regina resolutely."

"Okay, okay, awesome! Awesome."

Emma's trying so very hard, and they fell into this so quickly and so suddenly, except it wasn't really sudden because now she realized it was long coming, and she knows that this could be ruined in an instant. Like how most events play out in her life.

So she grabs Emma's wrist, and gazes hard into her eyes. She sees so many emotions splayed out before her, and she wants to kiss her, bruising, like their first one, but their son is around the corner.

"Don't break my heart." She whispers, too hoarsely.

"Only if you don't break mine." Emma answers wryly, and Regina takes the chance and lightly pecks her on the lips. It's too light for them.

There's a distinct possibility of either.

* * *

She can't tell her mother, that much is certain.

What Regina feels in even _thinking_ ofit is ridden with fear and tension and apprehension. All she can envision is her mother reaching into Emma heart and crushing it and even though she knows Cora literally _can't_, (a perk of being the product of true love as it was), Regina can't tell her.

Cora had a bad habit of taking away all that Regina's ever loved, and as much as Regina wants to believe she's _completely _changed, she's not going to risk it with Emma's life. Or Henry's for that matter.

So when she goes on her first date, she hides her lovely dress with a coat and says she's going to the movies with Henry.

* * *

_Month Eight and a Half_

"Regina." Cora says, stepping into her room one day.

"Yes, Mother?"

"What the _hell_ is this?" Cora is lifting up a copy of Disney's 'Snow White and the Seven Dwarves' and Regina has the distinct desire to burn it.

"Where did you find that?"

"At an enchanted box store."

Regina sighs, and spends an entire full three hours explaining how in this realm this entire town and it's inhabitants were technically fictional, and Cora rages for a few minutes about a lack of a movie about The Miller's Daughter, and then about the apparent ugliness of the Evil Queen's outfit in the movie.

"It's _ghastly_, darling. So old fashioned, and hardly suitable for a modern day queen. I do hope you didn't wear anything like that."

A burst of laughter bubbles in Regina's throat. "No Mother, I always had the latest fashions for evil queens."

Cora cackles.

Regina's glad for the things they agree on, however pedestrian they are.

* * *

_Month Nine_

Snow White corners her in a supermarket one day as Regina is choosing her bundles of spinach.

"You remember our promise?" She looks worried, as if Regina really would forget something like _that_. She almost looks comical, standing there with her basket, in her Mary Margaret-esque clothing, holding two turnips.

"Yes, dear, I remember how you so graciously spared my mother's _life_." Snow recoils, and Regina can't feel any guilt for the bite. It still feels so satisfying making Snow White do as much, regardless of the fact that she's given up taking any true vengeance.

"She hasn't tried to kill us." Snow says then, curiously.

"No, she hasn't."

"And she loves you."

Regina takes a shuddering breath. She does, and then they fight, and then she does. Of course.

"Yes."

"I'm…" She struggles to find the words, ringing out the leaves on her turnips. "…surprised, if I'll be honest. I expected a war, and I got peace. My family is safe from anyone who could hurt us." The unspoken question here is _how?_

"Thinking it's still part of some horrid plan for my mother to become the Dark One and us killing everyone in this town?"

The red that appears on her cheeks answers the question before she even contemplates it herself. Snow gives Regina a hard look. It seems like there is something else Snow wants to say, something to bridge the bitterness and loathing and the wrought curse between them. Regina wants to slap it off her face, but refrains. She tries to remind herself that Snow has every right to be cautious. Has every right to blame Regina and Cora for _everything_. And yet she doesn't, because there's still so much Regina can blame _her_ for. The blame game is tiresome.

It doesn't mean she has to desire her presence, however.

"Just remember our promise." She says finally.

"Noted." Regina replies, and turns around to pick out a bell pepper.

When she turns back, Snow is long gone.

* * *

_Month Ten_

Emma and her lie out among the stars one night, and they both agree it's far too romantic for the likes of them.

But Emma is leaning over her a second later, her blond hair spilling over her shoulders, starlight twinkling in her eyes, and when she kisses her, Regina remembers how good true love can be when it's not destroying her.

As she tucks into Emma's shoulder, she thinks of how Cora must have felt this with Rumpel,l and for the first time feels curious instead of sick.

* * *

_Month Eleven_

She asks Cora about it on a walk along the harbor. It's safer, than in their home. (It really is theirs now, there are signs of Cora's existence everywhere). She asks her in hushed tones, and with the inquisitive face of a child asking her mother an innocent question. Like Henry asking her all those months ago.

But she's not a child, and Cora can see a ruse.

"I do not want to talk about it."

Regina lets it go _again_, and she's reminded of Cora's heart, still so new and so fresh with long buried feelings. She thinks of how Cora still thinks of love as a weakness even as she sees it's strength every single day. She thinks of when in the world she stopped thinking of love as a weakness herself.

She takes Cora's hand, and squeezes it, and remembers when Cora squeezes it back.

Steps, more steps.

"I want to meet her." Henry tells her as she's driving him back to Emma's one afternoon.

"Cora?" Regina asks, and it's with slight awe and trepidation. She assumed that Henry, like most of them, hated Cora and would not give her the benefit of the doubt. As they shouldn't, she sighs inwardly.

"Yeah." He says, scratching the back of your neck. "But um, with you in the room. And Emma." He pauses to think. "And Gramps with his sword." He looks up at her with panic in his eyes. "No offense, Mom."

She chuckles. "None taken, dear."

"But not now." He says quickly, amends. "Soon. Maybe for Easter."

"Could I ask why?" She asks quietly, and stops the car in front of the apartment complex.

He shrugs as if it's a light issue. "You're my mom. That makes her my grandma. I don't want to hate her, even if I…" He looks at her and looks away just as quickly. "…kinda do."

It hurts to hear, but she knows Henry would take the Charmings' side of the matter. And she can't make excuses for Cora killing Eva, just as she can't really make excuses for all of her past misdeeds. A middle ground needs to be found, however, and Henry, so very smart, sees that.

Or maybe he just wants to stop the hatred. She doesn't feel like asking him now. Because that might lead to him telling her he's still mad at her, which he is, but she doesn't feel like hearing it right now. Not when they've had a good day.

"It's fine, Henry. I don't expect you to like her."

"I'm not quite sure why you do." He says carefully, and she's very aware of the fact, (and so is he) that Henry is literally the only person in the world who can talk to her like this.

She doesn't answer, because anything she says will be a lie, and if she can help it, she doesn't_ ever_ want to lie to him.

* * *

_Month Twelve_

Regina comes back from her date with Emma the morning after, a kiss still buzzing on her lips, a delicious ache between her thighs, and she's humming as she nearly waltzes through the door. New love is a sweetness she doesn't want to let go of, especially one as chaotic as hers and Emma's. For one moment now, she doesn't feel the fear that constantly consumes her.

And there's Cora, standing there with her arms crossed and barely contained fury in her eyes. It's 10 AM, and Regina told Cora she was sleeping over at Henry and Emma's apartment. (Of course Henry was spending the night at a friend's house, but Cora didn't need to know that). She's done it before, and there was never a problem.

Her heart plummets in her chest, and the hairs on the back of her neck stand up. She stands near the door, guards herself and arms herself, walls up. Her voice is steel, the edge of a blade.

"Do you have a problem?"

There's a pause as Cora gathers her thoughts.

"Henry called. I didn't answer, as _you_ requested I didn't when he called. He was asking for you." Regina gulps and her eyes widen, and _oh gods please no, not now. Not yet._

Cora's head cocks to the side, and Regina is acutely reminded of the woman who took off people's heads, took out their hearts, nearly murdered hers without ever actually touching it. How could she ever think this would work out? How could she think _love_ could conquer the past?

"How could that be…" She says evenly, dangerously. "…when my darling daughter told me she was spending the night with her son?" Another pause, ridden with tension.

"I….Mother…?" She said desperately, inching backwards.

"_You lied to me!_" Cora shrieks, and Regina doubles back.

"I-"

"Oh don't even _try _to deny it! You were with that Swan girl, the _Savior."_ She mocks the name, and for the first time Regina wants to defend it. Emma has lived up to her name, whether she knows it or not, because Regina's heart surely feels saved.

"How does it_ feel_, Regina? To know that you're downfall is _her_? Snow White's daughter! _Eva_'s granddaughter! Foolish, _foolish_ girl! I taught you better! They're always going to hurt you, _always_! That won't _ever _change!" Cora stepping closer to her, each phrase burying deep in Regina's soul, sliding over her skin and making her feel worthless, so worthless, so _idiotic_, and vulnerable, and she widens her eyes and wants to be anywhere else; Emma's arms, Daniel's arms. She wants a father to run back to, oh yes, the father she_ murdered, _and where did that get her?

Back to the very woman she'd been running from all her life.

She can't be here, she can't, she can't, _she cannot._

"Do I need to prove to you again why, why loving her is only going to _hurt_ you? _Do I? They will always try to have power over you, take it away from you! _Her heart may be _difficult_ to pry out, but I'm _sure _I-"

And Regina breaks before she can stop herself.

"_No! _Mama_, Mama, don't! Please don't!"_She falls down, her heartbeat erratic, and a sob bursting out. Her cries are loud and gasping. All for an event she fears so much that hasn't even happened, and she can _see _it, _Daniel in her arms, Emma in her arms, _loving them killed them, love _kills_. It kills everything and everyone.

"_Mama….please…" _The please is long and mournful, and she wants it stop. The pounding in her head, her mother's voice. Why must happiness be taken from her again, why must _she_ be doomed to a life of emptiness.

"Oh gods." She glances up and through her tears and red-rimmed eyes she sees her Cora, frozen in the spot, eyes stricken and filled with unshed tears. Her hand is over her mouth, and a sob is threatening to break loose. She's looking at Regina with a sorrow, the sorrow she saw so frequently in her first few months. Regina is filled with rage at the sight.

"_Get out."_

"Sweetheart, I'm-

"Get. Out."

"Regina, please-"

"_Get out of my house or I swear on Father's grave you will be nothing but ashes on the floor." _

"I'm sorry." Cora whispers brokenly before darting away, through the front door, slamming it, frightened and full of a cowardice she never had before she had a heart.

She's so sick of hearing those words.

Love. Love is weakness. Love is strength.

She sits against the door, catatonic for hours it feels like, before getting up and stretching out the stiffness in her muscles.

Not for the first time she actually feels her age, and she trudges up with a pounding headache to her room, not even daring to look at Cora's, and it seems like she falls asleep as soon as her head hits the pillow.

* * *

Her door opens and her eyes spring open as well.

"Regina…" It's half a plea, half a question, and Regina sighs as she sinks back into blankets. She wants to sleep, she does not want to deal with this now. Her heart and her head feels so damn _heavy_, and she doesn't want to cry again. Can't be weak in front of this woman, not ever again.

But instead she says, "Come in. Leave the door open."

Her mother inches towards her bed slowly and watching her carefully as if Regina will poof away in purple smoke at any moment. She settles uncomfortably at the edge of Regina's bed, and looks at her hands. She's been crying, that much is certain. She's tried to hide the evidence, however, not leaving a single tear tract for Regina to see.

But Regina can tell.

The tension could be cut with a knife, as she sits up in bed and waits for whatever apology Cora will give that Regina may or may not accept.

"How did you live with it?"

Regina starts.

"Live with what?"

"Your _heart._ For all those years. _Feeling_…everything. How did you do it?" Her mother sounds lost, like the child in this situation, searching for answers in a dark forest. Cora doesn't understand how hearts work as much as she understands how to pluck them from chests, and it's pulling her apart now at the seams now.

Regina had thought about it. Many, _many_ times. How easy it would be to slide her hands under her skin and pull out the direct source of all her misery. How simple life would be, to be able to kill without any remorse, to never have to feel the taxing burden of love again. But with that gone, so was Daniel. So were her reasons for her vengeance. She'd never to feel her hatred for Snow White. She needed to _feel _to be the Evil Queen. Needed to feel the hate burning inside her, the need to destroy the world and bring it down. Needed to feel Daniel's love, and the hurt with that. She couldn't dull it. She was a survivor of her own heart, and pulling it out was _giving up._

She doesn't tell Cora this, however.

"I don't know." She answers. And it's honest. Because how she survived that long with it securely in her chest, she will never really know. How she hadn't gone insane, she will never really know.

Cora snarls a bit, but it's half-hearted. The fight is gone from her.

"You have to know." She panics. "You need to teach me how. You're so much stronger than me, daughter."

Not really, no. But Regina stays quiet.

"I'm _sorry_." She says again before tapering off into a sob, and Regina can't stand to hear those words again when they mean so little, even if the intent behind them is everything Regina's ever wanted to hear from her mother's lips, so she gives into undeserved pity and moves to hug her mother, tightly, and she's crying again before she can help herself.

She loves her mother, she always will.

She won't let it kill her, however. Not when there might be something to live for still. There's Henry. There's _Emma._ And still, there's them. They need to be honest with each other, that is clear to Regina as a blue sky. They need the words _I'm sorry_ because some day they might truly make a difference, and _someday_ Regina might be be able to say them to Snow White even, and maybe her back, all these maybes Regina never thought she could live with.

She still can't, not really. But she's holding her sobbing mother in her arms, she has the love she always wanted, _needed,_ and she wants to believe, she _needs _to believe.

"This really _is _enough. I promise." Cora whispers.

_I know, _Regina wants to say.

"Tell me about Rumpelstiltskin." Regina says because she might never have the courage to ask it again.

Cora blinks in surprise but doesn't snap back. She sighs, turns around, and settles against the pillows.

Regina waits with bated breath.

"He was the only man I've ever loved. Truly loved." She adds.

"I gathered that." Regina said, still sitting upright, holding her disgust in.

"I pulled my heart out….so I wouldn't feel it any more. It was holding me back. From power. From being able to someday be queen, to then make you queen." She looks ahead, not at Regina, not at anything in particular.

"I got used to the numbness of it. I got used to never loving anything or anyone." She looks at her then, and suddenly reaches out to stroke Regina's hair reverently. She's smiling at her again, that loving motherly smile, and that's the only reason Regina doesn't flinch away.

However, her eyes are sad. The same brown as her own, reflected back.

"Even you." She says quietly. She drops her hand. "I almost put my heart back in when I first saw you. I-I loved you even without a heart, and I wanted to feel it fully, if only for a moment. But I knew I would never take it back out if I did."

Regina is captivated, her heart pounding, and unasked question on her own lips, _Would you take it out now?"_

She breathes out. "I remembered my goal. You were to be queen, and I was to teach you that power meant more than love. To bring them to their knees, to give them what they _deserved._"

She caught Regina's eyes again.

"I failed, quite obviously."

"And do you regret that?" Regina hates how much her voice wavers.

Cora looks at her in surprise, as if that's the last question that Regina could have asked. She looks away and it occurs to Regina how this is the question Cora's been struggling with for the entire_ year._ She waits with baited breath, dreading the answer and needing it. Cora looks frantic for a moment. The truth of her heart, her heart not touched for over forty years back in it's place so suddenly and without mercy.

And then her face is clear, as if she'd known the answer the whole time.

"No." She gulps. "No, I don't. I was wrong. I was _so_ wrong." She looks at Regina, and takes her hands and looks at directly in the eyes.

"I'm sorry about the stable boy. I'm sorry I made you marry the king. I'm sorry I never let you be yourself. I'm sorry I chose power over motherhood." Her voice tapers off as she glances down.

"I'm sorry that I threatened Emma Swan." Her brow furrows. "The last one…i just…I know how much your heart can be broken, how easily, I lost sight, I-"

"I don't accept your apology."

Cora is crushed, visibly. Her shoulders are hunched, and her eyes are watery, but Regina holds up a hand.

"But I _believe you. _And I will accept it. _Someday_, I will." She squeezes her mother's hands and manages a smile, tight but genuine, still full of love, not a weakness, but a strength, a strength she must always, _always_ try remember.

Because it saved her, it's still _saving_ her, and it will save her mother too. It's not that simple, the years of fear and desperation can't be unwritten, but she can move on. Because she's always survived her heart, and her mother will survive hers.

She whispers _I love you_ as she lets her mother go and it's the first time she's said it to her in more than twenty eight years.


End file.
